Focus area: Safety and wellbeing
At Atlas Copco Group we are strongly committed to addressing occupational health and safety risks and promoting a safe and sound working environment for all our employees, in all operations. This is critical to their health, wellbeing, and motivation, as well as to the Group’s productivity and competitiveness.
Our safety and wellbeing targets
Our employees face various types and levels of risk in their everyday work life. Much of the work in our operations is performed in a strictly controlled environment. Many procedures are automated but manual procedures remain, which may imply health and safety risks.
Employees may also be exposed to risks outside of facilities when travelling internally or to visit customers and business partners, or while undertaking service and maintenance on equipment at customers’ sites. Other risks may involve psychosocial aspects, related to for example workloads or work-life balance.
We seek to reinforce a culture and behaviors that contribute to the safety and wellbeing of our employees and contractors in the workplace. We engage everyone in improving safety practices and reducing health and safety risks. We also encourage the immediate reporting of near-misses, incidents, and risk observations. This is critical to raising the awareness of risks and to the development of effective preventative work.
Following up our progress
Key performance indicators on safety and wellbeing are continuously monitored by and followed up in connection with the quarterly reporting of sustainability data. Progress is also followed up in the employee engagement survey every two years, where the target is that the share of employees who agree that the Group takes a genuine interest in their wellbeing should increase continuously. The 2023 employee survey confirms that this share has increased compared to 2021.
| Injuries, total workforce, and sick leave 1) | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recordable injuries, number | 387 | 403 | 469 |
| Recordable injuries per million working hours | 4.5 | 4.2 | 4.5 |
| High-consequence injuries, number | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| High-consequence injuries per million working hours | 0.03 | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Minor injuries, number | 1,148 | 1,261 | 1,479 |
| Minor injuries per million working hours | 13.4 | 13.2 | 14.1 |
| Fatalities, number | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Fatalities per million working hours | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sick leave due to diseases and recordable injuries, Group employees, % | 2.2 | 2.5 | 2.3 |
We also monitor our performance by using a safety pyramid, where our target is that the pyramid should be balanced. This means that we receive more reports of risk observations than near misses, more near misses than minor injuries, and more or equal reports of minor injuries relative to recordable injuries. When risk observations and near misses are reported, this will raise awareness of conditions and behaviors that can lead to actual incidents. These insights form a stable starting point for well-directed preventive work in the area. In 2023, the result was in line with this target.
Strong commitment in product safety
Our customers rely on us to provide products, services and technology that help them improve their efficiency and productivity, while being safe and ergonomic to handle. We strive to live up to their expectations and have a firm commitment to develop, manufacture and sell products and services that offer good quality, reliability, and operator safety. Failure to do so could be harmful to our brand and business and may also entail legal and regulatory risks. Working systematically to improve and ensure the safety of our products is therefore in focus in our product development process and key for maintaining long-term customer relationships.